


One Equal Temper of Heroic Hearts

by Jadesfire



Category: Captain America (Movies), Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Gen, Magic, Monsters, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson Friendship, basically friends all round really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-04
Updated: 2014-07-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 10:54:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1896390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/pseuds/Jadesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Rogers is Captain America, conqueror of Hydra, world-saver, soldier, hero.</p><p>Hunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [petite-madame](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=petite-madame).



> Fusion with Supernatural, uses dialogue from Captain America 1 and 2. Title from Tennyson's Ulysses. Contains mild violence only, but there isn't an archive warning for that!
> 
> Written for Petite-Madame as part of the Star Spangeld Exchange 2014. It's somewhere between a crossover and a fusion, and a little impressionistic. Not something I normally try, but I hope you like it!

 

_The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost._  
GK Chesterton

 

"If you sold your soul in exchange, I'm going to kick your ass all the way back to Brooklyn."

Steve looked up, raising an eyebrow. "You're welcome to try, Buck. Might be a bit harder to do now."

"No kidding." Dropping into the seat opposite, Bucky narrowed his eyes. "It's still you in there though, right?"

"You know, despite what you might think, not everything that happens to me is the result of..." Steve waved a hand vaguely, not wanting to use the words. The tables in this place were far too close together.

"No, but most of the things that get you in trouble are." Apparently giving in, Bucky leaned forward, shaking his head. "And there's no way this doesn't mean trouble."

"Hopefully just for the other guys this time." The stress he put on guys was a little too heavy, and he knew Bucky caught his meaning from the slow grin on his face.

"Doing some good for the world, then?" he said, as the smile finally reached his eyes. There was still caution there, but for all his big talk, Bucky had always been the more careful one. Careful of Steve. He wasn't going to stop that just because other things had changed.

"That's the idea."

"Well at least you'll be able to reach them, this time." Of all the things, that was what Bucky had fixed on. The thought was right there in his first words when Steve had pulled him off Hydra's lab-table-from-hell. _Didn't you used to be shorter?_

"Jerk."

"Punk."

They grinned at each other, and Steve shoved the second glass across the table. "Let's hear it for saving the world, huh?"

Bucky took the glass, knocking it back in one gulp and slamming it back on the table. "Let's hear it for Captain America."

 

* * *

 

 

Everyone knows that Captain America had fought in the war and saved the world from the Nazis. The fact that he hadn't been able to save himself didn't matter, didn't make him any less of a hero. There was something there for everyone from the weedy kid ( _Captain America started out your size, and look how well he did!_ ) to the rabble rouser ( _Captain America didn't die so that you could trample all over this country!_ ). He was a symbol, an avatar, the everyman, the face of the nation, something to uphold and something to rebel against.

And somewhere along the line, Steve Rogers got left behind, forgotten by the people who claimed his memory.

Well. Not all the people. When you're part of a community that doesn't like to advertise, doesn't like to wave flags or even sign the right name on their checks, they can't really claim you for their own. But that doesn't mean they forget.

 

 

* * *

 

**Cleveland, OH, 1989**

 

The TV only had three working channels: news (boring), NASCAR (boring-er) and cartoons. That would have been okay, but they were showing the Captain America shorts again, and the boys had already seen them all at least four times.

"I wanna watch them again."

"They're a load of crap."

"I don't care."

"Dad's stories are way better."

"Dad's not here."

Which was true enough, so they let the cartoons play for now.

"This is stupid."

"Shut up, I'm watching."

"That never happened like that. The Red Skull wasn't a Nazi."

"Yes, he was."

"Okay, he was, but he wasn't _just_ a Nazi."

"I can't hear it."

"And Captain America was way better than a soldier."

The boys watched for another five minutes.

"This would be way cooler if they told it like it really happened."

"Yeah." The sigh was deep and disappointed. "I don't wanna watch this any more."

"That's okay."

There was still a weird humming noise coming from the TV after it went dark. That probably wasn't good, but there wasn't much to be done about it until Dad got back. And it was too early to go to bed, for either of them really.

"I'm bored, Dean."

"I know, Sam." They both were, really. "Hey, you wanna play Cap and Bucky?"

"Only if you stop throwing things. They're gonna make us pay for that plate."

 

* * *

 

Everyone knows that Captain America led an elite group of soldiers known as the Howling Commandos. Drawn from a range of backgrounds and specialties, they worked together as a unit, complementing and supporting each other. For decades to come, they would be studied as the textbook example of how a small, tight, well-trained force could take on a larger enemy and win.

It was tried afterwards, of course. The military got pretty good at it. But not every kind of fighter plays well with others, and in time everyone just agreed that whatever had gone on with the commandos in the war, it was as much about the time and place as anything else. A common cause was rare among people who'd all got into this fight for their own reasons. And whatever reason the commandos had had, it must have been a damn good one.

 

* * *

 

The thing was, there just hadn't been a good time to mention it. The Hydra bases were scattered, and just doing the recon took time, let alone planning the attack, carrying it out and mopping up afterwards. Steve's team were good, but even they needed downtime, and it hadn't seemed fair to burden them with more than they needed to know. He and Bucky took care of most things anyway without the others needing to be told.

Except some foreknowledge probably would have been useful before Gabe Jones turned a corner and nearly had his throat ripped out by a vampire.

Steve came skidding around the corner almost a second too late. Gabe was pressed against the wall, trying to keep the vampire's teeth away from his neck and managing to catch it in the face with the butt of his rifle. There was no way that could be enough, though, and Steve barrelled into them, the force of his attack throwing the vampire halfway down the corridor.

"What the hell?" Gabe was gasping, one hand on his throat, the other pointing his gun at the vampire.

"That's not going to help," Steve said, glancing at the ceiling, then the walls. All metal, and reinforced by the look of it. Strong enough.

He threw his shield, sending it ahead of him to rebound off the walls as he followed at a run. The vampire was just getting to his feet, snarling as Steve came at him and catching the shield in his outstretched hand as it flew towards his head.

"You're going to have to try harder than that," he said, sneering.

"Okay." Steve's gloved hands caught the edge of the shield, forcing it back with all his strength, using momentum to carry both him and it into the vampire, keeping it at neck height. He drove it towards the wall, the sharpened edge barely impeded by the flesh of the vampire's throat.

Behind him, there was a faint choking sound and he heard Gabe swearing in a mixture of French, English and _sweet holy hell, did that just happen?_. With a grunt, Steve pulled his shield out of the wall, letting the head tumble to the ground on top of the crumpled body. Carefully, he knelt and used a corner of the vampire's jacket to wipe off the worse of the blood. He'd have to give it a proper clean once they were back at base.

There were more running footsteps, and Steve turned to see Bucky and DumDum come around the corner. Both of them looked from the decapitated body on the ground to Steve, and then to Gabe, who was leaning against the wall, apparently trying not to be sick.

At a gesture from Bucky, DumDum put an arm under Gabe's shoulder, leading him away with only one backward glance. Bucky came over to join Steve.

"Vampire," Steve said, nudging the head with his foot.

"Figures. You think there's a nest or do we have a stray?"

"Let's hope the latter. We can't watch everyone's backs at once."

There was the boom of an explosion from somewhere in the distance, signalling the arrival of the rest of the platoon.

"I'll deal with this, report it to the Colonel and Peggy, you go check," Bucky said, pulling a bottle from one of his coat pockets. There was no way Steve was going to ask where he'd got the kerosene from. That stuff was only supposed to be used for the war effort, but like him, Bucky obviously thought this counted. There was a bag of salt in one of Steve's belt pouches, and he tossed it over, nodding at the body.

"Make sure you get the head too," he said, earing himself an unimpressed, _yes-thank-you-I've-done-this-before glare_. "I'll see if there's a nest."

Bucky nodded, upending the kerosene can. "If you're having fun, call me."

There wasn't a nest. Steve searched the facility from top to bottom, bouncing his shield off walls and floors to check they weren't hollow and muttering protections under his breath, mostly out of habit. While he wasn't exactly keen to run into a whole family of vampires, the lack of a nest wasn't all that reassuring. The one he'd killed to have come from somewhere.

Out in the fresh air again, he shouldered the shield and went to join Bucky, who was leaning against a wall, watching the SSR trucks roll in. The scent of smoke was lingering on his coat.

"Anything?" he asked, frowning when Steve shook his head. "That's not good."

"I know." Turning, Steve scanned the forest surrounding the compound. "I've told Peggy we'll carry out a perimeter search for them. She won't let anyone into the woods until we're done. They could be out there somewhere."

"But you don't think they are." Bucky tipped his head back against the wall, staring at the sky. "You think Hydra brought that vamp here all by his lonesome."

"I think we already knew Hydra were messing with forces from the other side. Every lab we find there's notes and books and talismans of some kind. And we know they were experimenting on people too." Neither of them ever talked about the lab where Steve had found Bucky, the foul smell in the air or the charged atmosphere that had made every hair on Steve's body stand on end. As far as Steve knew, nothing had happened, but still.

Bucky shrugged. "Your friend with the bad sunburn was kind of a clue to that."

"Erskine thought it was what was inside Schmidt that made him that way. What if it was something Schmidt invited in?"

"Possession?" When Steve nodded, Bucky whistled through his teeth. "Could be. But if Hydra's messing with demonology alongside the science, we're going to need more than just us to stop them."

"I know." Giving in to some of his own fatigue, Steve leaned against the wall as well, tipping his own head back to stare at the sky. "I was thinking of buying a lot of beer."

Bucky snorted. "That should work."

It usually did.

 

* * *

 

**Little Rock, AR, 1997**

 

He wasn't easy to find. Not that he seemed to be hiding, not really. It was just that slumped in the dust, leaning against the side of the car, he was hard to see.

"So." Dropping into the dust as well, aware that it would stick to the blood on his pants, he shrugged. "You okay?"

"What do you think?" Drawing his knees up to his chest, he went to put his face on them then thought better of it. His jeans were filthy. "Is it always like that?"

"Pretty much. None of them go down without a fight." He glanced over. "Would you?"

"No." The word wasn't much more than a whisper, but it was accompanied by a firm headshake that was at least a little reassuring.

"Good." Leaning back against the car, he put his head back against the warm metal. "You did good, you know. Real good."

"Then why do I feel like this?" He held out a hand, trying to hold it flat. It shook like a drunk in need of his morning shot.

Speaking of which. "Here." He dug in his jacket pocket, pulling out a barely warm bottle and pushing it into the outstretched hand. "This'll help."

It earned him something between a bewildered look and a glare; that was good. Much better than the terrified blankness that had come over his face before he'd up and run away.

"I'm not supposed to have this. I'm underage, Dean."

The look in return took in the blood on his face, spattered on his shirt and pants, the gore on his boots and finally the blood-soaked knife on the ground between them.

"You look like a man to me, Sam."

There was still a slight hesitation as he turned the damp bottle around and around, the label slowly turning red from his touch. Finally he let his knees drop, stretching his legs out in front of him.

"Whatever. You got a bottle opener?"

 

* * *

 

"What I don't get," Jim said, over the fourth pint, "is how you guys even know all this. I mean, is it something they teach in school in New York?"

Steve looked at Bucky, who looked at him. "Not exactly," Steve said. "For some folks, it's part of their history going back far as anyone can remember." He tipped his head to Bucky. "For some, it's something that finds them."

"Yeah, usually ten foot tall with teeth like carving knives."

"It was only seven foot and you know it."

"Still a couple feet taller than you were." Bucky leaned in. "You see for some folk, they're just too dumb to run away when something that can rip them limb from limb comes at them."

"It wasn't like I had much choice about it, Buck." The story got a new twist every time Bucky told it, and Steve usually ended up sounding like an idiot, the extent of his stupidity depending on Bucky's mood at the time. Apparently today, he was pissed off.

"I find this complete moron trying to fend off a crocotta with a plank of wood and the lid off the nearest garbage can."

"In my defence," Steve put in, "I used that plank of wood to kill it in the end."

"Yeah, after it gave you a couple of black eyes and a broken wrist."

There was no mockery in Bucky's voice, making Steve hesitate, his jaw clenching. It had been one of the worst moments of his life, realising that the thing that had killed his mother was going to get him too. Even after his hardest beatings, he'd never felt the helplessness that had come as the thing had towered over him, its mouth opening wider and wider. Bucky had saved his life that day, knocking into the monster, distracting it for just long enough.

Of course, Steve had immediately saved Bucky's life right on back by driving the stake into the back of the thing's neck. That was kind of how his life had gone from that point onwards, really.

Someone coughed, and Steve realised he and Bucky were still staring at each other, lost in the memory. He dropped his eyes to his drink.

At the other end of the table, Gabe said, "That thing that tried to, uh, eat me? Was that a croc-what-you-said?"

Lifting his head just a little, Steve raised an eyebrow at Bucky. _Your turn._

 _Thanks,_ Bucky frowned back, finishing his drink first. "No. That was a vampire." His voice was calm, matter of fact, as though that would help somehow.

"For real? Crosses, stakes, garlic? That kind of vampire?" Jim was staring at Bucky as though he was the one with three inch fangs.

"Nope." It was a mean trick, as some of the men actually started to relax before Bucky went on. "None of those actually work. This was a real vampire, not something from a trashy novel."

"You have to cut off its head." The words weren't a question, and Gabe wasn't looking at the rest of them. "Anything else?"

Bucky shrugged. "Not really. Some things hurt them a bit. Sunlight, dead man's blood."

"Please tell me that's just a dramatic name for particularly fortified port." Falsworth was pale from chin to forehead, his hand too tight on his glass.

"Wish I could." Steve tried to make it gentle. "But the more you know, the more of a chance you'l have the next time we encounter these things."

"Next time?" DumDum looked like he was going to object, but Gabe cut him off with a look.

"This isn't the first time you've found something like that in a Hydra base, is it?" he asked, not looking at Steve and Bucky.

It was Bucky's turn for the _all yours_ look this time. The whole 'taking it in turns' thing wasn't working out so well for Steve, really.

Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. "No, it wasn't. And it won't be the last, I'm sure of it. Hydra is dabbling in forces beyond this world. We - Bucky and I - have been able to handle it so far, but as we take out more of their bases, the more chance there is that we'll find things like this." He hesitated, because he really didn't want to go on, but they deserved the chance. "If anyone wants to back out, now's the time. This isn't what you signed up for. You didn't ask for this, and if you've had enough, no one will think any less of you for it."

A huff of a laugh from the other end of the table caught his attention. Dernier shook his head, the smile curling his lips derisive. He said something in French and shrugged, glancing at Gabe, whose mouth tightened.

"He's right," he said, staring into his drink. When everyone just carried on staring at him, he shook himself a little, sitting up straighter and meeting Steve's eyes at last. "Who else is going to do it?"

Steve let himself breathe again, glancing at Bucky as the others exchanged nods and grim smiles.

"Just tell us what you need, Cap," DumDum said, setting back in his chair. "We're with you."

The look on Bucky's face was pure _I told you so_ and Steve conceded a small _yeah, okay, don't let it go to your head_ smile before looking around at the rest of the men. His men. His hunters.

Bucky lifted his drink, waiting for the others to join him before the toast, and as Steve lifted his own glass, he already knew what the words would be.

"To the end of the line."

* * *

 

Everyone knows that Captain America lost his best friend battling of Hydra. James 'Bucky' Barnes was lost somewhere in impassable mountain territory, somewhere even Steve Rogers couldn't find him.

Heroic sacrifice became as woven into his story as the star and the shield, his own as much as his friends. Their names were on walls and plaques and written in books. They were whispered over tables in dark corners of unnamed bars, where the stories didn't quite match the authorised version. But then the people telling them knew more than a little about sacrifice themselves.

 

* * *

 

Steve ducked, throwing himself back against the closed door, forcing himself to focus on the problem in front of him. The problem of Bucky being trapped in the carriage behind him was something he'd have to deal with in a minute.

At the other end of the carriage, the monster howled, whether in anger or pain, Steve couldn't tell. The thing looked like a cross between a vampire and a machine gun, covered in hair and there was something unearthly glowing at the ends of its arms. Whatever Hydra had been doing, the results weren't pretty, even if they did seem fairly effective.

There was no real cover down here apart from his shield, and Steve knew he'd have to move sooner rather than later. He lifted his head just enough to see over the edge of the shield, dropped back as the thing shot some kind of firebolt at him. It rebounded, making the creature swerve out of the way, and Steve moved, keeping the shield up as much as he could as he ran forwards, trusting his instincts rather than sight.

They didn't let him down, and he crashed into the creature, knocking it to the floor and rolling to one side to avoid falling on top of it. Another blow and it stopped thrashing, lying stiffly on the carriage floor. As much as he wanted to get a proper look at it, Steve forced himself to get back to his feet, shoulder still aching from the impact despite the shield's protection. Investigation would have to wait; he could hear gunfire from the other carriage.

Through the small window, he could see Bucky, pinned down behind a pile of crates by two Hydra goons. Steve pulled the gun from his belt holster and used it to bang on the window, just as Bucky's gun clicked empty. Bucky looked up, nodding when he saw the gun, and Steve gave the goons one last glance, marking their positions as he slammed a hand on the door control. The gunfire immediately tracked in his direction, ricocheting off the door frame. Bucky caught the thrown gun, giving Steve cover as he stepped into the room. The center of the carriage was a huge shelving rack holding heavy-looking cases, not tall enough for good cover, but then Steve didn't need it.

He came forwards another step, then another, putting all his strength into pushing the case nearest him and moving away as the force sent the case at the other end of the rack shooting forwards. One goon jumped to his right, realising his mistake too late as Steve's shield bounced off the wall into his face. The one on the other side dropped as one of Bucky's shots found its mark.

"I had it under control," Bucky said, hefting the gun and checking for rounds.

"I know you did." Steve managed not to grin as he said it, retrieving his shield and joining Bucky by the door. "Now-"

There was a faint mechanical whine from the other carriage, and everything slowed to a crawl, letting Steve see in clear, excruciating technicolour. It was a sequence of events he'd only be able to assemble later, putting the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, images burned into his mind as clear as crystal.

Bucky, yelling a warning and throwing himself at Steve, just as a beam of pure energy bounced off the shield.

The side of the carriage blown away by the blast, the cold air raising the hairs on the back of Steve's neck as he tried to lift himself from where Bucky had pushed him out of the way.

Bucky, crouched low, the shield in front of him as the creature fired again.

The sound of Steve's voice, alien to his own ears as the bolt knocked Bucky off his feet, the shield clattering to the floor as he fell, rolling and stumbling over the ruined edge into the cold whiteness beyond.

Steve, acting without thought as he snagged the shield, throwing it edge first to embed in the creature's chest.

The pull of the wind, almost freezing Steve as he leaned out, hand reaching for Bucky, who was desperately clinging to a rail, face turned up towards Steve.

Bucky.

Falling.

And then there was only the endless snow of the mountainside, the howl of the wind - or that might have been Steve - and the feeling of empty air under his outstretched hand.

Later still, Steve would long for the blank whiteness of that chasm, because that would mean he wouldn't keep seeing Bucky, every time he closed his eyes. Seeing his wide, terrified eyes, and his mouth opening to call for help. Help that Steve had failed to give him.

He'd failed him.

 

* * *

 

**Reno, NV, 2002**

 

"If you're going to yell at at me, get it over with. The bus goes in half an hour and it's a twenty minute walk to the bus station."

"Dude, I've got a car."

"You've got dad's car. No thanks." He stuffed another t-shirt into the top of the duffel. It wasn't like he had much to take.

"You're really going to do this?"

"I can afford the bus fare."

"I'm not talking about the bus."

They both knew it, staring at each other in silence for a long moment.

"Please, Sam."

"This is what I want." He looked away. "I know you don't understand, but I have to do this, Dean."

"I know."

He stood on the porch of the rented house for a long time, watching him walk down the rainy street. They hadn't shouted at each other, not like him and dad, because he didn't want that for their parting memories. But when he reached the end of the street and turned the corner without looking back, that wasn't what he'd wanted either.

 

* * *

 

Steve didn't look up when he heard the footsteps in the rubble, just tipped the bottle as though trying to judge how much was left in it.

"Did you know I can't get drunk? My cells burn through it too fast. Means I can't forget, not even for a minute."

"Do you want to?" Peggy picked her way through the ruins of the bar, righting a chair so she could sit opposite Steve, carefully ignoring the room's third occupant.

"Not forever. But it might be nice. You know, just for a while." His eyes stung when he tried to look at her, the pain still burning through him.

Shaking her head, Peggy said, "It wasn't your fault."

"You read the report?"

"Yes."

"Then you know that's not true." Steve downed the shot that he'd poured, letting it burn the back of his throat. "Anyway, I can put it right."

Confusion, fear, then understanding passed over Peggy's face, and she gave the third person a sharp look. "This bar is built on the town crossroads." She poked at the ground with the toe of her shoe, knocking over the rock that Steve had placed on the freshly turned earth. "Have you agreed a deal yet?"

"We were just discussing terms." The demon smiled with the face of the girl it had possessed, her small mouth turning up at the corners.

"Then here are my terms," Peggy said, as calm and sure as ever. "Either you can leave now, or I will make you leave. Your choice."

"Careful, my dear." The words sounded strange, the German-accented English holding a sharp note, for all that the girl's voice was young and sweet. "You shouldn't make threats you can't follow through on."

"Try me." Not taking her eyes from the girl, Peggy asked, "Do you really think this is what Bucky would have wanted?"

Steve shook his head. "It doesn't matter. It should have been me."

She turned then, just enough to see if without turning her back on the demon. "He saved your life?" It didn't need to be a question, not if she'd read the report, but she made it one anyway.

Despite the burn of the liquor, Steve was cold, inside to out. The emptiness in his heart had filled with something heavy and leaden, so that there wasn't room for anything else. He swallowed, nodding.

"Then the least you can do is allow him the dignity of his choice," Peggy said, and her words were cutting, slicing through the ice, sharp enough that Steve had to suck in a sob. He fixed his eyes on the table and tried to breathe, tried to remember what he was doing here, tried to remember that he was making things right. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

He glanced up, just for a second, just enough to see the hungry, predatory look in the demon's eyes, and he knew that there was no deal he could make that Bucky would forgive him for.

"Hydra is still out there." Although she didn't raise her voice, Peggy's voice rang in Steve's ears. "The Red Skull is still out there. If the thing you saw on the train is any indication, we're going to need every advantage we can get if we're going to beat them. And Erskine gave one of those advantages to you. We need you, Steve."

He lifted his eyes a fraction, saw her reaching out across the table to him, her hand so close to his. It was almost beyond him to take it, forcing himself to move just enough to touch her, and the movement undid him. Distantly, he was aware of some kind of argument between her and the demon, but he couldn't find it in him to pay attention. Gulping deep breaths, he forced himself not to just break down, letting the grief wash over him instead. There was a rushing sound in his ears, iron bands across his chest, while the world blurred around him. As long as he'd had hope of the deal, of giving himself so that Bucky could live, he'd been able to keep it at bay. Now, he had only the truth of absolute loss, and Peggy's hand, anchoring him to the world. He closed his eyes.

When he came back to himself, it was fully dark outside. Across the table, Peggy was half-lying on the table, her head on her outstretched arm, her eyes closed, her hand still tight in Steve's.

"Peggy?" His voice broke on the words, and he coughed, making the fingers under his twitch. Instinctively, he tightened his grip, not wanting to let her go just yet.

She sat up carefully, rolling her free shoulder and he realised belatedly that her arm must be cramped by now. Still, when he tried to release her, she just squeezed his fingers tighter. He met her gaze without flinching this time.

"Thank you," he said, glancing to where the demon had sat.

"Of course."

He hesitated, the words forming around the idea in his mind slowly, so that when he spoke, he wasn't entirely sure what he was going to say.

"I'm not going to stop until all of Hydra are dead or captured." That was a deal he could make. That was a deal that would make Bucky proud.

Peggy just nodded, putting her other hand on top of his. "You won't be alone," she said, and Steve let himself believe her.

* * *

 

Everyone knows Captain America was killed in action, saving the world. His plane was lost over the Arctic, too far into the ice to ever be found. The war went on without him, his final act of courage a source of inspiration to everyone who heard the story.

There were more stories than that one, of course. There was the one where he hadn't crashed the plane at all, but had landed in the north of Russia somewhere, trekked his way south and was living anonymously in Moscow. There was the one where he'd crashed the plane, but when SHIELD had found the crash site and tried to get in to save him, the whole plane had gone up in flames. Then there was the one that said that Howard Stark had fished something out of the ocean on one of his rescue trips, and that SHIELD was hiding it in their vaults somewhere until they could work out how to turn it into a weapon, but no one really believed that one.

But the only story that really mattered was that Steve Rogers had died saving the world. That was the end of it.

 

* * *

 

The plane shuddered around him as Steve dragged himself into the pilot's seat. He swung the chair around so he wouldn't have to look at the wreckage behind him, Schmidt's strange device that rose from the centre of the room and which now lay in ruins.

He flicked on the radio. "This is Captain Steve Rogers, does anyone copy?" It was something of a forlorn hope. He was a long way out from base now, if the screens in front of him were anything to go by, and he didn't even know if the signs and sigils painted onto the walls of the cockpit would let a signal out. "I repeat, this is Captain Steve Rogers. Can anyone hear me?"

_"Captain Rog-"_

_"Steve? Steve is that you? Are you alright?"_

Despite everything, Steve smiled, just a little, as Peggy's voice came over the radio.

"I'm fine. Schmidt's dead. The tessaract's gone."

_"What about the plane?"_

"It's shielded twelve ways from Sunday, never seen anything like it."

_"Don't worry about that, we'll figure it out when you get back."_

Steve stared out of the window, feeling the ice-cold wind tug at his hair and send shivers down his back. "I don't think I can bring it back, Peggy. This thing is headed straight for New York, and I have no idea what it could do if it gets there."

_"Steve-"_

"I have to put it in the water."

There was static on the other end of the line for a long moment, and Steve risked a glance around. The cockpit looked like some crazed sorcerer's den, with the contraption that had held the tessaract standing at its centre like an altar. Maybe that had been the idea.

Even with Schmidt gone, Steve could feel the power in this place, the magic that was written into its very structure, and he knew it could never be allowed to reach civilization.

 _"-do this, Steve. Please."_ On the radio, Peggy sounded like she was trying to hold back tears, making Steve's own throat tighten.

He swallowed hard. "Peggy. This is my choice." Without really thinking about it, he fumbled in a pocket for his compass, opening it so that her picture was looking out at him as he placed it on a dial. He stared out of the window at the endless whiteness, trying not to think of Bucky, of how it seemed both of them were cursed to be lost to the snow.

 _"You still owe me a dance, Rogers,"_ Peggy said, her voice choked, and Steve managed a huff of laughter, his breath ghosting in the air.

"Raincheck?" he asked.

 _"Just this once."_ She was silent for another long moment, and Steve checked the readouts in front of him, tightening his grip on the control lever. _"I can't let you be lost this way, Steve."_

"I'm not lost, Peggy."

_"No, you won't be."_

The air was whipping through the room now, as Steve pushed the controls forward into a dive, cold wind snatching Peggy's voice from the radio almost before he could hear it. Still, he thought he caught a snatch of language that wasn't English, a prayer or a spell, he couldn't tell, but beside him, the symbols she'd drawn on the back of his shield glowed, and just for a moment, he felt warm.

Then the whiteness of the clouds gave way to the whiteness of the land beneath, and the world disappeared into blinding light.


	2. Seen

  
_I hear, I know. I see, I remember. I do, I understand._  
Confucius

Dear had just got back to the motel, dusty and tired and starving, and pretty much all he wanted to do was shower, eat and sleep.

Sam was at the tiny table by the window, bent over his laptop. He didn't look up as Dean dumped his bag on the bed. "Turn on the TV."

Dean groaned. "Really? Can't it wait until I've not got half the dust of California sticking to my face?"

"No."

That wasn't normal, and Dean started hunting for the remote. "What channel?"

"Doesn't matter." Sam still hadn't looked up, staring at his laptop screen as though transfixed. "Just turn it on."

"What the hell, Sam?" Finally locating it under the ratty bedspread, Dean chose a channel at random and flipped it on. 

Ten seconds later, he let himself drop onto the second bed as his knees gave out under him. "Is that-"

"Yeah."

There was someone talking over the top of the pictures, but Dean muted the sound when it became clear that no one had any idea what the hell was happening in New York. And hell was the right word.

Dean watched as the news showed shaky footage of monsters roaming the streets, screaming and howling as they chased fleeing commuters. He flinched as the clip cut out on the close up of impossibly long fangs and a gaping mouth that was just a pitch black hole.

After a few minutes, Sam came over to join him, making the bed creak as he sank down behind Dean, still cradling his laptop. He didn't say anything.

They watched for an hour, Dean's phone vibrating off the table, ignored, as New York was overrun. He saw demons and vampires, monsters that he didn't even have names for and some that he didn't want to know. People were running in all directions, screaming and ducking and dying.

But amongst all the chaos, someone was fighting back. Iron Man flew in and out of view, vaporising anything and everything he could see. Three long-clawed, long-limbed monsters went down with arrows in their eyes, while a vampire was beheaded by a red-headed woman with a sword almost as long as she was tall. She dropped it before the head hit the ground, coming around and flinging the group closing in on her halfway across the street with some kind of magic that Dean had never seen before.

A huge blond man with a hammer - an actual, honest-to-Norse-god _hammer_ \- fried a pack of werewolves with lightning. Beside him, a green giant who looked like he should have been with the invaders picked up one of the bodies and swung it around like a club, flinging it at something flying over his head and roaring when it hit its target.

Dean blinked as something shot across the screen, too fast to see, and had actually opened his mouth to speak for the first time in what felt like forever, when Sam grabbed his shoulder.

"Dean, it's him."

Somehow the sight of Captain America racing into view, catching his shield on the rebound and using it to plough himself a path cut through Dean's shock, and he swore aloud.

"Yeah." Sam hadn't let go of his arm.

The urge to pack their bags and set off across country suddenly doubled. Because that was Captain Goddamn America. Alive and well and apparently living in New York.

Despite the urge, Dean stayed where he was, not wanting to miss a second of this. He kept catching himself holding his breath and had to remind himself to breathe from time to time.

By the time Iron Man fell from the sky and the portal closed, Sam was gripping Dean's arm so hard that he was pretty sure it would bruise. Someone in an office block had got their cellphone fixed on what had been ground zero for the fight, and on the six figures who'd taken on the forces of darkness. And won.

Wincing a little where his muscles had seized up from sitting still too long, Dean turned and looked into Sam's ashen face. The whole world had to have been watching this, just the same as them. There was no way of hushing this up, or of mistaking those creatures for anything but the hellspawn they'd been. On the floor, his phone was still vibrating.

They stared at each for a long moment, until Sam apparently realised that he was still clinging onto Dean's shoulder, and pulled away at last, flexing his fingers.

"What now?" he asked, voice hoarse.

Dean looked from him, to his phone, to the TV that was starting to show pictures of the aftermath, and back to Sam. He shook his head. "I have no idea."


	3. Revealed

 

_Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true._  
Honore de Balzac

Everyone knows that Captain America joined SHIELD. With everything that happened after the Battle of New York, that wasn't exactly surprising. If no one knew what SHIELD really was or what they really did, then it didn't really matter. Captain America was part of them, so they had to be the good guys, right?

And if the people who knew more exchanged skeptical looks over a few beers in dark bars, then that didn't really matter, did it? Because what they knew and what the world knew had always been two different things, and they liked to keep it that way.

 

* * *

 

Steve leaned back against the railing and tried to keep a lid on his temper. After the disaster on the _Lemurian Star_ , he knew he wasn't in the best frame of mind to listen to Fury properly.

"We can neutralise a lot of threats before they even happen. And we can find the ones who are already here."

Shifting, Steve crossed his arms. "Even if they haven't done anything."

"Done anything yet." Fury gave him a sharp look, eye dropping from Steve's face to his folded arms and back again. "You know as well as I do that there are plenty of things out there that endanger humanity just by existing."

"What about the punishment coming after the crime?"

"Did you ask every vampire whether or not he'd killed anyone before you cut his head off?"

It was a fair question, and one that Steve couldn't duck. "No. But maybe I should have. They're not all unthinking beasts."

"Yeah, because the ones with brains are so much better." Stepping closer, Fury lowered his voice a little. "Ever since New York, more and more things have been coming out of the woodwork. You know we keep an eye on the hunter community. Hell, we recruit from them as much as we can. And they are overwhelmed out there, Captain. They are dying."

"They've always been dying. You do not need to tell me that." Steve straightened a little.

"Then you know the difference that saving just one life can make."

"This isn't about me." It was a struggle, but Steve forced himself to stay calm, forced down the memories. "And I can't imagine any hunter is going to be excited by the idea of you following them around the world, ready to shoot first and ask questions later."

"We don't need to ask questions when we already know the answers."

"Or you think you do."

With a shake of his head, Fury took a step out of Steve's space again, spreading his arms. "I am trying to keep this world safe, Captain. That's what SHIELD has always tried to do. But we have to take the world as it is, not how we'd want it to be. We have been dealing with these sorts of threats for a long time."

"You've recruited some of them."

"That works too." Dropping his arms, Fury turned away. "Whatever you may think, Captain, Project Insight will change the world."

"I thought I was joining SHIELD to help keep the world free.”

"You were. Free and safe."

Steve shook his head. "This isn't freedom, it's fear."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, but the decision has been made, and you have your orders." Without looking back, Fury turned and strode away, pulling up the collar of his coat.

Still with his arms wrapped around him, Steve shifted so he could look out at the helicarriers, trying not to imagine what they could do. It wasn't that he objected to SHIELD hunting. Just the opposite, really. But he'd met enough people who'd fallen through the cracks in the world to give him pause.

"So what am I supposed to do?" he asked the air, and got the silence he expected in reply.

 

* * *

 

**Houston, TX**

 

He twisted out of the way at the last moment, the claws scraping his back but missing the vital organs they'd been aimed at. The movement made him drop the knife, and he heard it clatter away. He swore.

"Hey, numbskull."

The creature turned at the distraction, letting him drop to his knees and scoop up the knife again. It was turning back to him as he came to his feet, and this time the claws grazed his cheek as he thrust the knife into its belly.

There was hissing like hot metal dropped into water, and the creature tried to grab at the knife even as it fell backwards, the charmed blade doing its work.

"Ow." The cuts on his back stung, and his face itched.

"Well, that was a lot more difficult than it was supposed to be." He took his face in one hand, turning it to the light. "You okay?"

"Going to be hard to find a date for a while, but I'll live. How's the jacket?" He twisted, and could see already that the news wasn't going to be good. "Awesome."

They fell in the step on the way out to the car. "Is it just me, or is this getting harder?"

"You getting old, Sammy?"

He came to a stop, putting out a hand. "Tell me you're not thinking that too, Dean."

There was no way he could do that without lying, so he just shrugged. "What am I supposed to say?"

"Maybe that I'm imagining it?"

He didn't say anything.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

 

* * *

 

"Look who it is, the running man." Sam waved a few leaflets at Steve. "You didn't want to join us?"

"Didn't want to interrupt. Seemed pretty intense." Just standing in the doorway listening to the support group had been hard. He didn't want to imagine what would have happened if any of them had started him talking.

"It can be. We're all going through the same things, though."

Steve just couldn't get used to they way everyone knew his business, thought they know him. The damn Smithsonian hadn't exactly left him much privacy, although at least they'd thought he was dead when they put it together. So Sam knew exactly what he'd been through.

He didn't know about Sam, though, even if he suspected.

"Did you lose someone?" If he wasn't Captain America, if Sam didn't already know so much about him, he probably couldn't get away with asking that.

As it was, Sam nodded, just once. "My wingman, Riley. We were, uh-" he hesitated, eyes sliding away, and while it might have been just the pain of the memory, Steve knew what that looked like. It didn't look shifty, uncertain all of a sudden.

And then Steve got it, because if Sam knew about him like the rest of the world, he might know more than that from other sources. Only he couldn't be sure, because that wasn't the sort of thing you put on boards in museums.

Trying for casual and probably missing, Steve nodded. "You were para-rescue, right? So you were out hunting for someone?"

On the word 'hunting', Sam's eyes snapped up, startled, then he smiled, just a little, and Steve thought he saw relief there. "Yeah, you got it. Hunting for someone." He paused as a member of staff passed behind them, his expression clouding again. "Riley went down, and I couldn't raise him. Didn't want to believe it at first, and after that, it got harder and harder to find a reason to be there, you know?"

"I know." Steve glanced around, back into the meeting room. "You gave it up?"

"Pretty much. Found other things to do." The wave of Sam's arm took in the corridor, the room and the whole VA building, maybe the whole of DC, and he shrugged. There was something almost apologetic in the gesture.

"And you're happier?"

"I am." Sam tilted his head a little. "You thinking about getting out?"

"No. Well. I wasn't. Never have done. Not of everything." Even if he were to give up SHIELD, there was no way he could just pretend he didn't know about the rest of the evil lurking out there. "What else would I do?"

"Anything. You wanted to give it _all_ up? You could do anything you wanted."

He could, he knew. He could walk away from SHIELD, from hunting, from everything, and just start a new life. Except using his skills for anything else would feel like a betrayal of Doctor Erskine, of Bucky. He'd just be back to being a dancing monkey again.

Of course, if either of them could see SHIELD today, he wasn't sure either Erskine or Bucky would be encouraging him to stay. But Steve trusted Fury, despite their disagreement, and he wanted to see this one through.

Sam, waiting out Steve's reverie, raised an eyebrow. "Anything you wanted," he said again. "What makes you happy?"

He'd been asked a lot of questions since waking up from the ice, but Sam was the first to ask him that. And Steve doesn't have an answer.

Shrugging, he keeps the smile on his face. "I don't know."

Not buying it for a minute, Sam stepped in a little closer, lowering his voice. "Look, when I said I got out, I meant from everything. But I still know people, you know? I know the look a hunter gets when they've faced down one monster too many. You can't do it forever and not lose yourself."

While he appreciated the gesture, Steve shook his head. "I did it for over ten years, and I'm still standing."

"Right." Not buying it, Sam kept his eyes on Steve's face. "And how long did you have to do it without your wingman?"

That wasn't a question he could answer, for all that Sam had the right to ask it. Steve shifted his gaze so he was staring over Sam's shoulder, looking into the meeting room beyond.

"That's what I thought," Sam said, and Steve heard him shuffling the leaflets he was holding. "Look, man, I'm not exactly going to stand here and tell Captain America what he should be doing. But I know what it means when someone comes home looking that way. And I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't tell you there were other options."

"Thanks." Except Steve had always had options. He'd always had choices. But since he'd made the choice to ignore orders and rescue Bucky, this was the way his path had been set. He didn't think he could turn back now. So it was a lie when he said, "I'll think about it." He knew it, and Sam knew it, but they smiled and shook hands like the good soldiers they were anyway.

* * *

 

Everyone knows that SHIELD was taken out by forces inside and out, the resulting battle hitting the headlines and the streets of DC hard. Whether it was inevitable or predictable or just plain bad luck was one that was debated endlessly from Capitol Hill to the local 7-Eleven.

After a while, anyone who said they'd seen it coming got a deservedly skeptical reception in the press and around the dinner table. And those who really _had_ seen it coming kept their mouths shut and got on with picking up the pieces.

 

* * *

 

For the most part, Steve could walk around DC without being recognised, for all that his face had been plastered on everything from billboards to coffee cups. But that was Captain America, all stars and stripes and show. Steve Rogers was harder to recognise, especially in non-descript clothes and a sweater with the hood pulled up.

Still, it was hard not to hurry through the hospital corridors, or to flinch every time a security guard glanced at him. The last time he'd been here, it had been to watch Fury die, not a memory that filled him with hope.

The scratches and bruises from his close encounter with a Quinjet had healed, but he kept his face carefully turned away from the cameras that seemed to be at every corner, just in case. It didn't feel like anyone was paying him any attention, and he'd followed that instinct for long enough to trust it.

Only when he reached the vending machine, staring at the empty slot where Fury's USB drive should have been, did he get the first prickles of panic, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck even as his stomach flipped over.

"Lose something?" In her reflection, Natasha was smiling knowingly, but then Steve had rarely seen her smile any other way. With a quick glance down the corridor to check they were alone, he spun around and grabbed her arm, forcing her back into the empty room behind her and not caring if he was holding on too hard. She was almost as fast as he was, and if strength was going to be his only advantage, he wasn't going to lose it.

The smile fell from her face as her back hit the wall, and she looked up at him with the neutral mask he'd come to think of as her usual expression.

"Where is it?" he asked, shaking her a little.

"Safe. Great hiding place, by the way."

Getting a grip on himself, Steve let her go, still standing too close in case she decided to try to slip past him. "What's going on?" he asked, not taking his eyes from her face. "Who killed Fury?"

That got a reaction, the same moment of sadness that he'd seen in the mortuary, the mask slipping for an instant.

"I don't know his name. He's a myth. A rumour. They call him the Winter Soldier." When Steve didn't back off at all, she let her gaze slip away from his, her face softening with the memory. "I was sent to extract someone from somewhere." She shrugged a little, not apologising for her vagueness. "You know how it is. We were nearly in the clear when he came out of nowhere, blew the car out from under us, like my shields were nothing to him."

She looked back at Steve, and he fought to keep his own expression neutral. He'd seen what Natasha could do in the field, how she could toss creatures twice her size around as though they were toys. He'd seen her block firebolts and burn through warding charms like they weren’t even there. If someone had got past her, they were good. As though reading his mind, Natasha nodded.

"I got my charge out, got my defences up. When he realised he couldn't move me, he just went through me." She lifted the edge of her shirt, just enough to show a strip of skin above the waistband of her jeans. An ugly black spidersweb of a scar spread out across her skin, covering an area almost as big as her hand. Above it, Steve had a glimpse of the sigils that he sometimes saw along her arms or wrapping around her neck. They seemed to come and go at her will, but he supposed with everything that had happened, masking them wasn't exactly her top priority at the moment.

"Bye bye bikinis," she said with a humorless smile.

"Yeah, I'll bet you look terrible in them now." It was more flippant than he felt, and he took half a step away, giving her some room.

She dropped her shirt, her expression turning serious. "Whoever he is, no one can trace him, using conventional means or magic. He's responsible for who knows how many assassinations in the last fifty years, and no one knows where he came from, or where he goes when he's done. They call him a ghost, maybe a literal one, since no one's been able to get at him."

"He's not a ghost." In his memory, the assassin stood on the edge of the rooftop, Steve's shield in his hand. Except there had been something wrong with that hand, something not quite real about it that Steve couldn't quite get a fix on. "I've seen him. He's real alright, and I think he's human. Mostly. I don't know." He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to get his jumbled thoughts in order.

"What are you going to do?"

Steve knew that Natasha had trusted exactly two people in this world with her life. One of them was dead, and she couldn't call the other without risking both their lives, so she wouldn't call. Now, as she looked up at him, he wondered if the trust he saw there was real, or just what she wanted him to see. Or if it even mattered.

"I'm going to find him," he said. "And I'm going to find out why Nick Fury had to die."

She didn't look away, assessing him for a long moment. Then she nodded. "You'll need help," she said, and this time it was she who stepped into his space. "We should start with the data files." A hint of a smile pulled at her mouth as she looked him up and down. "And maybe a change of clothes."

 

* * *

 

**Meridian, MS**

 

The motel was pretty luxurious by their standards. There weren't even any holes in the carpet, and if you ignored the suspicious stains, it could almost be considered comfortable.

"Is there anything else yet?"

"Not in the five minutes since you last asked me."

He drummed his fingers on the table. "There's got to be something about what happened."

"Yeah, there is. Same as there was five minutes ago. Director Fury's car was blown up in central DC yesterday. He's dead. That's it."

"I'm going to call-"

"You already called everyone, Dean."

"Well I'm open to better ideas, Sam."

He sighed and closed the laptop. "No one knows anything. No one can get through to anyone at SHIELD, not even through the backdoors. They're in lockdown, and they're making it clear they don't want any help from outsiders."

"I thought they were on our side. How are we outsiders?"

"Apparently anyone who didn't take their paycheck is an outsider." He rested a hand on the top of his laptop, thinking. "I guess we could head over there. See what's going on."

"Every hunter in the country is going to be thinking that. If we all go there, who's going to take care of everything else?"

"And if we don't, what's going to happen to SHIELD?"

Digging in his pocket, he pulled out a quarter, holding it up before flicking it in the air and catching it on the back of his hand, quickly covering it with the other. "What do you think?"

"I think that's a lousy way to make a decision, and you know it."

"You're right. Let's get packed up. It's a long drive to Washington."

 

* * *

 

"That's it then?" Sam dropped into a chair, putting his coffee on the table. "Hydra's still out there?"

"No," Natasha said. "Hydra's been in here with us the whole time." She was still too pale, and there was a long scrape down her left arm to go with the blackening bruise on her temple. Under the circumstances, she sounded calm and sure enough, but the sigils on her bared arms were rippling, fading in and out of existence as though she kept forgetting to hide them, or it was just too much effort to try.

"Sounds to me like you're going to need a new organisation," Sam said, obviously trying not to stare at her. "And you're going to need help."

Steve frowned. "I thought you got out of the game. Out of all of it."

"Yeah, but Captain America needs my help. I can't think of a better reason to get back in. Besides," Sam smiled a little ruefully, "I kept my contact book. You don't do that if you plan to leave it all behind."

"If you know anyone who can hex the hell out of Alexander Pierce, I'd like to hear it," Natasha said, making Sam snort.

"You're telling me you can't?"

She tilted her head. "Not from here, and not right now. Besides, if he's heading up this whole thing, he'll be protected six ways from Sunday. I'd need a coven for that, and you two don't qualify." The look on her face was thoughtful though, and when Sam shot him a questioning glance, Steve just shrugged. There had never really been a good time to ask Natasha about her powers, and this wasn't it either.

"Then we're going to have to find another way in," he said, pulling their attention back to him. "If Pierce himself is untouchable, who do we know who isn't?"

"I have some ideas," Natasha said, getting to her feet. "Let me check something out."

Sam waited until she'd left the room, his eyes still on the doorway. "Is she-"

"I have no idea," Steve said honestly. "You want to ask, be my guest."

"Yeah. I'll think about that." Shaking his head, Sam turned back to Steve. "If I'm going to help you with this, I'm going to need my gear first."

"You kept it somewhere?" Even retired hunters usually kept a few things stashed somewhere, just in case. As long as it wasn't too far away, getting it shouldn't be a problem.

"Most of it's here," Sam said, "But I don't mean the hunting gear." He grinned and sat back in his chair, stretching his legs out under the table. "You ever heard of the Falcon program?"

 

* * *

 

Everyone knows that driving in DC can be absolute hell.

 

* * *

 

The hand that hit the shield wasn't human. The force of the blow was hard enough to push Steve down to his knees, and he put his shoulder into it, trying to push back. When the hand was suddenly withdrawn, he just about had his feet set enough not to stagger, stepping back a little to give himself some space. A second later, he pulled the shield up again, this time to deflect a much more human hand holding a very real knife.

In the blur of movement that followed, he couldn't get a proper look at his opponent's left arm, too busy dodging and deflecting and trying to stay in close enough contact to keep the fight centred on him. Natasha's attacks - magical and physical - had barely scratched the man, and she'd gone down to a bullet in the shoulder.

Every time the left arm connected with the shield, Steve felt it all the way to his shoulder, which shouldn't have been possible. The shield absorbed all vibration, and the symbols on its reverse were supposed to do the same for magic. Except there was something about the blows that seemed to be getting through.

It wasn't until the shield was ripped from his hands and thrown back at him, embedding itself in a nearby van that Steve could really see the Winter Soldier. And he was glad he'd been braced for it.

The man's left arm was a pure, pitch black, the colour so absolute that it wasn't even reflecting light. When he moved, it was as though a shadow was swirling inside it, and it took Steve a moment to remember where he'd seen something like that before. It hadn't been often, but he'd performed or been present at a few exorcisms, forcing a demon to leave its human host. Staring at the Winter Soldier's arm, it was as though that black mass had been captured, harnessed, limited to the shape of a human arm and welded to the man's body.

Inside the outline of his arm, the darkness roiled and flexed, then he was moving again, closing in on Steve, his eyes narrowed and Steve had to force himself back into the fight.

As he lifted his arm to block a blow, the edge of his wrist caught on the dark arm, and he felt the sting of it like a static shock. There wasn't enough force in it to really hurt or to take him down, but he was careful to duck it next time, using his shoulder and knee to gain some space again. The other man definitely prefered close quarters, trying to bring his speed with a knife to bear, making that small piece of distance Steve's only advantage.

That was easier said than done, though, and as he tried to kick out from a grappling hold, the left arm shot out and caught him around the throat. Without thinking, Steve brought his hands up, trying to pull the wrist away from him, and the shock was startling, pain lancing through his neck and hands. He gasped, twisted, kicked out again, struggling against the grip.

Then he was flying, thrown over the wreckage of a car behind him, and landing hard on the concrete. His head was spinning, and he forced himself not to think too hard, to rely on instinct instead. That had come with the serum, with the enhanced strength and speed. He'd needed to be able to keep up with them, and it had been as though every sense was heightened, to the extent that they didn't need his conscious brain to process any more.

He rolled away from his landing spot before he really knew what he was doing, and wasn't really surprised when that unearthly fist smashed into the pavement where his head had been. There was no time to breathe before the Winter Soldier was on him again, just as fast and strong as before. Just as fast and strong as Steve.

The only advantage Steve could get was the shield, and he spun in a kick, catching the other man full in the chest and giving him a precious second to wrench it out of the van. He brought it around as the attack came again, using his turn to get outside the man's guard and slammed the edge of it into the darkness of the false shoulder.

On a normal human, it would have severed his arm. The Winter Soldier let out what might have been a grunt of pain, arching his back as the edge of the shield cut fractionally into the surface. Underneath, the shadows swirled more fiercely, rising up to meet the metal. Steve felt the magic seeping into the shield, into his arms, and he pulled back again, disengaging and managing to anticipate for what felt like the first time.

As the Winter Soldier came at him, Steve was ready, catching him mid-leap with what would have been a clear hit if the other man hadn't managed to twist somehow, turning his jump into a somersault over Steve's head. Steve's hand still made contact, though, fingers clutching at the mask and ripping it free. He had no idea if the other man needed it to breathe or not; maybe if he did, this whole thing would be over sooner.

He turned to see, straightening slowly as he found the Winter Soldier, back to Steve and apparently just as winded. The other man turned slowly, long hair framing his now-uncovered face.

And the bottom fell out of Steve's world.

"Bucky?"

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

The shadows of the arm seemed to thicken and swirl, rising to the surface like a swelling tide, and Steve watched as the Winter Soldier's - Bucky's - eyes took on the same darkness, just for an instant.

Then it was gone, and while it was better to be looking into eyes that were fully human again, the blankness there was almost as terrible. There wasn't even a spark, nothing except slight line that creased his forehead, but even that was confusion, not recognition.

Steve braced himself for another attack, as his mind tried to wrap itself around what it was seeing. The thoughts were throwing him off, and he had no idea how he'd survive another round.

As it turned out, he didn't have to. With only the warning of his shadow on the ground, Sam swept down, his wings out and his feet connecting with the back of the Winter Soldier's head. Steve forced himself not to think of him as Bucky, trying to push the thoughts away completely and let his instincts take over again, as though that was something he could do now.

The Winter Soldier stumbled, stunned, and before he could get his balance back, a wave of power swept across the road, carrying him with it. The blast was strong enough to overturn the few remaining cars, setting some of the them alight, the tarmac buckling and bending with the force of it.

Through the smoke, Steve saw Natasha drop her arms and slump back against the truck she'd been using for shelter. Whatever she'd done had drained her, he knew, and it had probably saved his life.

He turned the other way, searching for any sign of that unholy arm and startling familiar face. Sam was on the ground a little way away, folding his wings and turning in slow circles, obviously hunting just as Steve was. Some of the shock had drained away now, replaced with the coldness that he'd felt on that train on the mountainside. In all the moments where he'd dreamed of getting Bucky back, in all his nightmares of losing him again, he couldn’t have even imagined something like this. Just trying to wrap his mind around it felt like too much, the effort of it absorbing him so completely that he didn't hear the sirens until they were on top of him, and the men with guns were pouring out of the armored cars.

Without much choice, he went to his knees as ordered, not really aware of anything but the image burned into his memory. Distantly, he saw Sam and Natasha being led away, heard the voice in his ear telling him it was all over.

And a part of him wished it could be.

 

* * *

  
**Knoxville, TS**

 

"Dude, that was my burger."

"We have to go."

He glanced up, saw the look and decided that he didn't really want the burger now it was covered in coffee anyway. Even with the urgency, he waited until they were in the parking lot to ask.

"What happened?"

For answer, he held up his phone, the news headline sucking the air out of his lungs. _Captain America Arrested._

Swearing, he fumbled the car keys and nearly dropped them.

"What the hell?"

"They're saying he's some kind of traitor. A news crew filmed them taking him in." There was silence for a moment. "Well that's a load of bull."

"What?" Okay, so he couldn't drive and read the news at the same time, but not knowing might just kill him anyway.

"The state of the road. No way regular cops did that. Looks like something went for him with a wrecking ball and a flame thrower."

He swallowed, swinging the car back on to the road so fast he heard the back tires squeal. "That doesn't sound good."

"No." Another silence. "Dean?"

"Yeah, Sam?"

"Do you really think Captain America could be-"

He was driving too fast for this really, but without looking, he took one hand from the steering wheel and whacked his brother upside the head.

"We're not stopping for anything but gas," he said, and slammed his foot the rest of the way to the floor.

 

* * *

 

It was peaceful out here in the woods, easy to imagine that they were just camping, taking a break from the hustle and bustle of real life, not planning how to take down the world's biggest spy agency.

"They got the details worked out," Sam said, coming to lean against the rail next to Steve. "All very well throwing SHIELD to the wolves, but they've got a lot of data on a lot of hunters in their computers. Natasha and Maria are writing a virus to take that out before they dump the info on the internet." Off Steve's look, he shrugged. "Don't ask me. Thing seems to be equal parts math and magic and I didn't want to know."

"That's good." Steve straightened up. "There's going to be a lot of clearing up to do when we take Hydra down."

"You mean when we take SHIELD down."

"Do I?" He couldn't see it as anything but Hydra now, with its tentacles locked around SHIELD, holding on tight. "Either way, there's going to be a lot to get done. The world is going to need hunters."

"It always does." Sam was still staring out over the valley. "You know he's going to be there, don't you."

They hadn't talked about it, not really, not since Steve had told them who the Winter Soldier was. He hadn't had to say what that meant to him. "I know."

"And whoever he is now, I don't think he's the kind of guy you save. I think he's the kind of guy you stop."

"I don't know if I can do that." It wasn't just about his being Bucky. Whatever they'd done to him had brought him up to Steve's level. Same strength, same skill, and that damn arm. And he had the added advantage of apparently not knowing who Steve was.

Taking Steve's words as the doubt they were, Sam turned to him. "He might not give you a choice."

"Have you ever seen anything like that before?" There was no need to say what he was talking about, no way Sam could have missed it.

The shake of Sam's head wasn't unexpected. "Whatever they did to him, it's not of this world. You're talking serious power there, joining human and whatever the hell it is. Which reminds me." He fished in his pocket. "Natasha gave me this for you. Well. For him, really." He threw the small object across.

Steve caught the thin bracelet that looked like it had been woven together from old wiring and a few paperclips. It made his fingers tingle as he turned it over, and he saw a few hairs caught in it, a few scraps of cloth and a tiny ball of paper wrapped in wire and held between two threads of metal. It was light enough to bend easily, and although he'd thought it was a complete circle, as he turned it, he saw the opening.

"She said you'd know what to do with it."

Slowly, Steve said, "The arm is controlling him, I think. Taking over his mind."

"I guess it would do. They'd need it to, and they'd need him not to remember. No other way to keep him under their thumb. Whatever Hydra's up to, they've got some serious powers behind them."

"He's still Bucky." The coldness of Steve's shock had dissipated, leaving behind only the heat of his anger. In general, he kept his temper in check, knowing what he could do if he lost it. But this time, he didn't think he needed to; that anger might be the only chance Bucky had in the end.

"He doesn't know you." Sam was trying to be gentle, Steve knew, but he was also trying to give Steve some kind of reality check.

Steve really wasn't interested. Reality was what you made it, and he was going to make this happen. Instead he started to walk away, not letting the doubt have any more room in his head.

"He will. Gear up. It's time."

 

* * *

 

Everyone knows that when the helicarriers came down, hundreds of lives were lost. There weren't just the people on board, and the people in the Triskellion but everyone on the ground unfortunate enough to get in their way. And for everyone who died, two more went missing, whether swept away in the chaos or using it to slip quietly out of sight, it was impossible to tell.

The list was long, but those who cared pored over it, noting every name. Everyone who was there, and everyone who wasn't.

 

* * *

 

Steve had the chip in one hand and could feel the weight of the bracelet in the opposite pocket. Below him, Washington DC spread out under the glass floor and in front of him, the Winter Soldier blocked his path to the computer core.

No. Not the Winter Soldier. Steve was done thinking like that.

_Bucky._

"People are going to die, Buck," he said, trying to see if there was any kind of flinch at the sound of his name. "I can't let that happen."

The only response was a slow flexing of the fingers of his left hand, the shadows boiling beneath them. Bucky's face was blank, and his eyes dark again. He stood at the other end of the bridge, blocking Steve's path but making no attempt to attack him, not yet. The first move was going to have to be Steve's.

"Please don't make me do this." He didn't know who the plea was for, the words not much more than a whisper. And he knew that there wasn't going to be an answer.

Getting a tighter hold on the chip, he shifted his grip on the shield with his other hand and threw it, moving in for the first clash.

Whatever they'd done to Bucky, his strength was equal to Steve's now, and his resilience seemed to be as well. The last time he'd fought someone who could truly hit him hard enough to hurt, Steve had been on board a Hydra ship, hurtling towards oblivion. It seemed everything really did come full circle.

Together, they crashed off the bridge, Steve losing his grip on the chip, his shield and Bucky all at once, and hitting the lower level hard enough to knock the breath out of him. There was no time to get it back before Bucky was on him again, and even as they grappled, Steve knew he was losing. The arm was too strong, and he had too many other things to think about.

As though to ram the point home, Bucky threw him hard enough to send Steve sliding downwards, although the movement gave him a precious second of liberty to grab at the chip. It was too far away, and all he succeeded in doing was bringing it down with him as he hit the glass below.

He could feel the helicarrier moving underneath him, and see the ground turning. They had to nearly be in position. He needed to make a choice.

Turning his back on Bucky, he ran towards where the chip had skittered across the glass, crying out when a fierce blow of pain caught him full in the back. It knocked him off his feet into the wall, and behind him, he heard running footsteps and the sound of his shield clattering to the floor. There was no way he could turn back in time, and his hand went to his pocket before he'd really thought about, instinct kicking in when he needed it the most.

When he got his balance back, Bucky was right there, crouched to pick up the chip. Steve threw himself on him, the first time he'd truly had the upper hand, and grabbed Bucky's human wrist as hard as he could. Bucky howled, but didn't let go, trying to fend Steve off with his other arm. Ready for him, Steve dodged the blow getting hold of Bucky's neck and lifting, hefting him into the air, ignoring the kicking of his legs and the gurgling sound coming from his throat.

Turning, Steve slammed him into the glass floor, following him down and shifting so he could get an arm around his throat. When the shadowed arm came up towards him, Steve was ready, pushing the bracelet around its wrist and holding on as tight as he could.

Bucky screamed, writhing against Steve, his arm rippling and twisting. Steve just held on, riding out the frantic movements. He glanced down, seeing that the chip had fallen back to the floor, Bucky's human hand going limp even as the false one jerked and spasmed. Trying not to look at the way the shadows seemed to be trying to escape, distorting the arm into grotesque shapes, Steve kept his grip, pulling on the choke hold, not knowing whether that or the shadow arm was going to do its work first.

He still didn't know as Bucky's whole body went rigid, then limp, sagging away from him. Steve let him fall, scooping up the chip and sparing only the briefest of glances down. The shadows seemed to be retreating from the bracelet, the pale light of the metal driving them back, making Steve frown. Natasha had been too vague when he'd asked her what it was, and there had been no time to press her.

There was no time now, either.

Apparently whatever they'd done to Bucky had given him Steve's recuperation abilities as well, because the first shot came when Steve was barely halfway along the bridge. It caught him in the left side, making him stagger, but not fall. The second shot knocked him to his knees, and he hung from the railing for a moment, breathing hard.

Dragging himself up, he ran the last few steps to the computer core, feeling and ignoring the next shot, only the one to his shoulder as he rammed the chip home really biting home. The thing was, he knew Bucky. Even with a handgun, he'd been the best shot in the unit, and he only hit what he wanted to. He could have taken Steve's head off with that first shot. And he hadn't. That had to mean something, surely.

Still, the bullets were taking their toll, and Steve only distantly heard Maria in his ear, telling him to get the hell out of there, that the job was done. He answered her, he knew, except the words had to be someone else's, because his job wasn't done. Not yet.

The world exploded. Around Steve, the helicarrier started to take fire from the others, glass shattering and steel beams falling all around him. One of them caught him in the back, making him cry out as he tumbled, dropping to the glass floor below.

Bucky was there, kneeling on a girder, his body curled around the false arm. When he looked up at Steve, the arm was just visible, a new silver skin spreading over it. There was pain and fear in his eyes, none of the blankness from before, and just for a second, Steve let himself hope.

"You know me," he said, coming a step closer.

Bucky flinched, his expression suddenly turning wild. "No I don't!" The words were a scream, and he came off his knees in a rush, his fist catching Steve off-guard and toppling him to the floor.

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and we met when you saved my life." Steve could feel the damage to his body catching up with him, the blood loss and the blows and the grief, and he just stared up at Bucky, spent. "You're my friend."

"You're my mission." The punch wasn't unexpected this time, but that didn't make it hurt any less. It was as though whatever was controlling the false arm knew it was about to lose and was determined to take Steve with it. The silver had spread to the elbow now, encasing the shadows, and while there was still more force behind it than any human could manage, the tingle of magic was gone from the blows. Bucky stared down at Steve, expression broken and lost, even as he didn't seem to be able to stop himself from trying to take Steve apart with his bare hands.

"Then finish it," Steve gasped, dropping his head back.

Bucky's head fell forwards as though following Steve’s, his human hand wrapping around his other arm, which was shining and bright all the way to the shoulder now. He stared at the bracelet. "What-"

"It's the end of the line," Steve said, the words slurred. He had lost this fight, he knew, but there was one more he could still win. "And I'm still here."

That did something. He could see it as Bucky jerked back, almost jumping to his feet, surprise and horror and something like recognition in his eyes. The last thing Steve saw as the floor went out from under him and he started to fall was Bucky still standing over him, his face twisted in a frown, and his arm shining with silver.

And his only regret was that Bucky had seen him fall, because Steve knew how much that hurt.

 

* * *

 

**Washington, D.C.**

 

"We might be able to get through on foot, but there's no way we can drive. They've got the city locked down tight." When there was no reply, he looked over. "What is it?"

"There's been..." He shook his head, not know what to say. "Someone's dumped all SHIELD's data on the internet. All of it. And it's not good." He scrolled down the page, his face going pale. "Uh, you're gonna want to see this."

In a sideroad on the edge of the city they sat and read it, just as they had sat and watched the news two years earlier. They skimmed through the lists of Hydra operatives, the names of murdered SHIELD agents, the reports of experiments and tests and missions. There was too much to read in one go, and they wouldn't be the only ones trawling through it anyway.

"You know what this is?" he said when his vision started to blur from staring at the tiny screen.

"Really, really bad?"

Slowly, he shook his head. "This is a gold mine. This is a list of everything we've been hunting, all this time, all in one place. This, Sammy, is our new shopping list."

"Dean, I really don't think-"

"Good, you think too much." He fired up the engine, checking the mirror before pulling out. "And we've got a lot of hunting to do."

* * *

 

Everyone knows that when the helicarriers crashed, SHIELD fell, taking Hydra with them, and that it was all over except the shouting. That was the end of the story.

Everyone knows that, except for those for whom it was the beginning.

 

* * *

_Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'_   
_We are not now that strength which in old days_   
_Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;_   
_One equal temper of heroic hearts,_   
_Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will_   
_To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield._

Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson


End file.
